Black Women in films........

The Image of Black Women in Film

           As we examine and explore the Civil Rights movement in the United States we can look at films being produced to see how America was responding to the internal societal strife as Black Americans.

          If black men were experiencing the pain of social injustice and inequality in America, black women’s challenges were even more difficult. They had the double yoke of race and gender as they experienced oppression and discrimination.

          If we look at the image of black women in American films one can find many examples of white people’s perception. For example, in the both silent films and talkies we see negative stereotypes. Before films with sound, black characters were played by whites in “black face”. The white versions of black characters were limited to five types: the tom, the coon, the tragic mulato, the mammy, and the black buck. Black victimization was the consequence of these negative stereotypes. Movies, such as The Debt (1912) and In Slavery Days reinforced the mulato characters to “an evil and degrading creature”.

          In the film, Birth of a Nation in 1915 the American cultural attitude epitomized the negative black image; and, it exploited the worst fears in the minds of whites. It took the advent of black independent films for black woman to have a more flattering portrayal in America’s movie house. Women like Ethel Moses and Bea Freeman emerged as viable black actors. The first black movie star was Edina Morton.

          With the invention of sound in movies the negative image and stereotype would become even more planted in the American psyche. Why? Because the movies needed music, rhythm, and dancing; this sets up the self-limiting roles that ultimately tells viewers that, blacks are here to entertain us. That was the extent of their contributions between the years of 1927-1940.

          After the stock market crash of 1929, Blacks were portrayed in films as the obedient, loyal servant; as his master’s best friend. In a time when people were losing faith in everything the most famous “mammy” played by a black actress was Louise Beavers. She starred in films such as “She Done Him Wrong” (Mae West) and “Bombshell” (Jean Harlow). In the film “Imitation of Life (1934) she protested the use of the word “nigger” and ultimately got it removed from the script. 

          Other Black women were influential as well, like Nattie McDaniel, who was nominated “Best Supporting Actress” for her role as mammy in “Gone with the Wind”.

          In the forties, with the depression over, blacks “exchanged their mops and buckets for zoot suits and sequined gowns” (138).

Two well known black actresses emerged, Hazel Scott and Lena Horne. Walter White, who was the head of the N.A.A.C.P at the time, felt that Lena Horn would alter the depiction of black women in American movies. She resisted roles that depicted her as a maid or a prostitute. Ultimately she was blacklisted during the McCarthy witch hunts for communist sympathizers, and her association in the council of African Affairs, and also her friendship with Paul Robeson.

          Dorothy Dandridge was one of the leading, black, women movie stars during the trendy 1950’s and 1960’s. She was the first black movie star to be nominated for an Oscar for best actress.

Later, Diana Sands introduced a new image for black woman in films. She was a “contemporary, un-typed, intelligent black women…neither mammy nor mulato.” (143)  in 1972 she starred in Georgia, Georgia, which was the first film with a screenplay written by black women. It was Maya Angelou

          It wasn’t until 1967, in Otto Preminger’s, “Hurry Sundown” that we see the “first major, big budget, start studded motion picture to center on the militant spirit of the mid-sixties and the Black Revolt”.

Diane Carroll was the actress who depicted the “post-integrated women” and “the middle class negro lady”. She was an educated Northern black woman who reflected in her speech, class, mannerisms, look and lifestyle that of white middle class America.  Movies like Paris Blues and Sundown would be good examples.

Cicely Tyson is the first genuine movie star since Dandridge to transcend all prior black stereotypes. In the movie “Sounder”, she won a best actress Oscar nomination from the National Society of Film Critics.

As the Civil Rights movement continued throughout America, the role of black actors and actresses reflected the struggles and challenges that  Blacks  experienced in a racist society and the courage it tool to seek “equal protection under the law”